Smart Love - When Schoolmates Hurt Your Child's Feelings

Written by Martha Heineman Pieper, Ph.D. and William Joseph Pieper, M.D

When Schoolmates Hurt Your Child's Feelings

Unless your child has already encountered rebuffs from older siblings or neighbors, in the beginning she may return from school with her feelings bruised by the rough-and-tumble of peer relations. The child who knows that you love her and love being with her may be amazed and upset when other children exclude her or become angry with her. Because the child's all-powerful self believes in its power to control other people, a child of this age feels especially wounded by a friend's refusal to play. You will feel for your child when she says plaintively, "Jenny didn't want to play with me today. She said she will never play with me again." Yet these moments provide golden opportunities to help your child to draw on the reservoir of love and trust she has accumulated with you, to supply herself with secondary happiness in the face of the disappointments that result from others' conflicting motives.

You can sometimes help your child by emphasizing the difference between her relationship with you and her friendships. You might say, "It may feel confusing and hurtful because we always like to play with you and here's someone saying she doesn't want to. But sometimes other children don't do what you want. When that happens, it's better to try to find a friend who feels like playing. I am sure that there is someone in your class who would be delighted to play with you. I remember you said you had fun with Samantha." Over time, because of your help and caring, your child will come to derive greater secondary happiness from the fun of playing than from the illusion that she can convince each and every child to play with her at all times.

Occasionally children will report that classmates have made cruel remarks to them. We know one little boy who reported to his mother that there was a girl he liked at school, and he had told her he wanted to marry her. She replied, "I can never marry you, your skin is too dark." Parents should acknowledge that the cutting remark must have really hurt. They can also emphasize that the other child was mistaken, saying, for example, "I know what she said hurt your feelings. But what she said is wrong; no skin color is better than any other, and people can marry whomever they please." Parents' opinions are more important than peers' judgments at this age. If you emphatically disagree with the other child's put-down, your child will listen.

It is sometimes difficult to know whether to take action outside the family when your child has been insulted. In general, run-of-the-mill insults, such as comments about your child's clothes, weight, or glasses, are best dealt with at home. But if there is a pattern of racial, religious, or ethnic slurs, or your child is being teased because she has a significant disability, you might suggest to the teacher that a classroom discussion of differences in skin color or religious and cultural practices, or of the feelings of people with disabilities, might be in order.

How to Help Your Child with Homework

In trying to help your child with homework, use the same approach as when you taught her to tie her shoes or to ride a bike. Foster your child's efforts by making concrete assistance available in a relaxed way and with ongoing love and affection. Parents often worry about the extent to which they should supervise and assist their children with homework. Fortunately, the child who possesses a durable inner happiness will most likely resolve this dilemma for you. Because she enjoys using her own mind, your child will neither hesitate to ask for help when she needs it, nor seek help when she doesn't. Still, in the earlier grades children may need an occasional reminder to get to their homework.

The most effective assistance you can offer your child with her homework assignments is to establish a daily work time before or after dinner. You can use this time to sit down and read, knit, do crossword puzzles, pay bills, write letters, or do other desk work. Your child will feel proud and grown-up to be doing her work right alongside Mom, Dad, big sister, or big brother. Try to avoid pursuing distracting activities, such as watching TV or playing video games, during prime homework times.

It is crucial that you view your efforts to help your child with her homework as purely facilitative. Your aim is to advance your child's abilities to derive secondary happiness from making constructive choices and becoming proficient in her efforts (for example, to help her to learn how to organize, schedule, and complete homework), rather than to make certain that any particular homework assignment gets done or is done to some established level.

If a child asks for help with a homework problem or project, feel free to offer it, secure in the knowledge that the child wants to feel and to be competent. The more you can respond positively ("I'd be delighted to help you. Let's try this problem together.") and show the child how to think through and analyze a question, the more effectively the child will navigate the important balance between sticking with a difficult task and appropriately asking for help when she needs it.

Don't Stand By and Watch Teens Fail

Many experts recommend that parents let their children and adolescents experience the "natural consequences" of their immaturity or willfulness. The smart love perspective is that when you stand by and let bad things happen, your child experiences the twin disappointments that something went wrong and that you did not seem to care enough about her to lift a finger to help prevent the mishap. The "natural consequences" approach is really a form of punishment. Children are never fooled into thinking that you had nothing to do with the unpleasant outcome.

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